I grew up in the Midwest with an alchoholic mother, no father and a fiercely independent spirit. At 18, I defied the advice of virtually everyone who should have cared about me and left for school 1,000 miles away. I intended to return home eventually, but a funny thing happened on the way...
I ended up in an entirely new city, with an entirely new life, a great job, great friends, an adorable boyfriend and a whole new perspective. I also seem to have acquired a 15 year-old along the way...

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I have been kind of gushy around here lately, which I suppose I shouldn’t apologize for, but at some point I will have to cover years 1-18 of my life, which were a little less positive. Especially numbers 8-12…those were not that much fun.

But I can leave that until tomorrow. First, I am going to cover Boss Foxy, which is by far the coolest name I have given anyone so far. And she would be really fired up if I told her. Maybe someday…but for now we all have secrets (including…teaser…one very large one I am keeping from you:-P)

Anyway, about when I started work here, Smoking Hot Roommate, who is a little more plugged in that I am, encouraged me to find a mentor. I never really even thought of it, but she explained the virtues of finding someone who could offer your career advice and guidance and general counsel. I could pretty much hit up both Papa Bear and Big Sis for that kind of stuff, but I could see the virtue of finding an alternate source.

As I mentioned, this is almost an entirely male industry, so I sort of though I should find a female mentor who could help with issues around fitting into a male culture. As luck would have it, we have a female partner here at the firm. There are NOT many of them in the industry.

Boss Foxy actually used to be Big Sis’ boss at Big Name Investment Bank that rhymes with Old Can Schnapps. [I really laughed at that one]. They worked in London together for almost five years. Papa Bear was concerned with the lack of women in the firm…he is kind of a women’s libber, which I guess happens when you have two absolutely amazing daughters…and set out to increase that number. In looking for a senior level woman, of whom there are few, Big Sis suggested that he talk with her old boss. He hired her on the spot and she was a partner within a year of that.

Fast forward to me starting here. Armed with SHR’s advice, I approached Boss Foxy all timid and cute one day, told her what I was looking for and asked her if she would be interested in mentoring me. Or if she knew anyone at another firm who might. Well, she got all excited and not only did she agree, but she put me on her schedule for lunch once a week for eternity to talk about whatever I wanted.

And she has been great to me. She has been faithful to her promise to meet once a week, despite having an absurdly busy schedule. She also takes time to explain things to me that I don’t understand, and suggests projects in different industries with the principals and vice presidents that I should try and get involved in.

She has also taken me to a couple of women’s networking sessions in the city that have been really helpful and have been SUPER ego boosters. And she has given me invaluable council on how to be a woman in an industry that is 95% male. I don’t want to sound like a sniveler, but it is hard and you do have to be wary of the way people view you. Especially because I am so much younger than everyone else and look even younger than I am.

Beyond that, she is just a good friend. She takes Munchkin to baseball games sometimes, and I baby-sit her kids on occasion. And she told her husband to consult me before he bought her a Christmas present last year…lol.

One last thing…she is in her mid 40’s and has three kids, but she is still in extremely good shape. I wouldn’t say she looks younger than her age, but she definitely doesn’t look like she has had three kids. She engenders a ton of respect in the office and the guys that work for her would run off a building if she asked them to. But they also all think she is hot…lol…and the power is part of that.

Well, on three occasions now, our lunch meetings have turned into “facial, manicure and massage” meetings…hee hee. We have gone to a spa nearby and taken a couple hours to decompress. The first time we did that, I wasn’t really sure what the protocol was for getting massages alongside people you work with. Didn’t bother her, though, and she got naked before the massage (yes, I did the same, but I wouldn’t have done it first!).

Well, I relayed this story to the guys at lunch a couple days later, and they were just completely flabbergasted. After like five minutes of open jaws I got like one little whimpered “Wait…you saw Boss Foxy naked?”

Another couple days later, I had relayed that story to Boss Foxy, who casually dropped in conversation to a couple of the guys…”I understand that you guys were impressed that Cutie saw me naked?” And they just had no idea how to respond to that at all. And on her way out the door, she casually dropped “She has more tattoos than me, but mine are bigger.”

Which is true, and also left them all with looks on their faces that can not be described in words. I wish I had a camera.

And I guess leads to me telling you about my tattoos...I have five of them and they all have a story.

I had wicked déjà vu this morning…I had a conversation with Munchkin about a test she has coming up this week that I really felt like I already had with her previous. Creepy. Now if I could just conjure up a conversation about how she did, I can put her mind at ease about it…

She worries about school all the time, but she also gets all A’s…she is just a little worry wart, that’s all.

I left out a detail in my work description yesterday. Actually two of them. One is that I am getting promoted in December to Senior Analyst (read the previous post and that will make more sense) and I also hear from a reliable little birdie that I will get something in the order of a 15% raise. I don’t think my job will change at all…they sort of dump a little bit more responsibility on me all the time, and I will still be low girl on the totem poll…but raises are awesome!

The second thing is that there are only three women on the investing staff. There is me, one partner…that’s Boss Foxy, who I haven’t forgotten about…and a senior associate who just started a couple of months ago. There are 21 guys, which makes for an interesting working environment. I think I see a completely different side of it as well. I am not the boss, and I am not someone any of them is trying to sleep with (yes, I believe that guys almost always hit on any girl they can…lol…except possibly the boss’s almost-daughter that they work with) so I get to see them with their guards down.

Which is very, very interesting. It kind of makes me wish I had big brothers growing up, but then also makes me glad I didn’t…lol. On the one hand, they are really cute in the way they get protective of me (yes, one of them got in a fist fight to defend my honor…awwwww…) but on the other, before I had The Boy, they made it a bit tough to meet anyone if I was out with them. But they keep me smiling, and a couple of them I count as dear friends, and their wives, too.

One last thing…I am not allowed to bring Smoking Hot Roommate or Big Sis with me when I hang out with them. Despite being mostly alpha males…young, good looking, rich…they are absolutely terrified of them both. First, they are both actually the boss’s daughters, as opposed to being just his pretend daughter like me;-), and second, they are both ridiculously hot and smarter than all of them. That is a combination that just doesn’t compute with them.

They also all realized that Smoking Hot Roommate was smoking hot when she was about 15, and they never quite knew how to handle the guilt over that. Finally, they all know that Big Sis will be running the place in 2 or 3 years (she doesn’t work here now, but she works at another firm in the same industry, and the succession plan is not a secret) and don’t really know how to deal with that either.

I used to hang out with the guys from work all the time…Wednesday was their night. Unfortunately I don’t get out with them much any more. Which is a shame…it is always a good time.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Munchkin and some of her school friends are going out for Halloween as the Cheetah Girls. If you had a kid that age, you would know…lol (by the way, how did anyone as cute as Hannah Montana come from the seed of Billy Ray Cyrus? Riddle me that…)

One of the girls lives in a town nearby where the Trick of Treating is better, so they are all gonna go over there Tuesday night. Munchkin asked me if I would come over and take them out, and I said sure.

Well, the girl’s Mother called me yesterday just to make sure that I really did volunteer to do that. Turns out that this mother and her husband had planned on taking the kids out but were told by their daughter that they were staying home and I was taking them.

When she protested that there was no reason for me to drive all the way out there and do that, she was told “Mom, no offense, but you guys aren’t cool enough. She is a much cooler mom.”

So, in addition to already owning a “World’s Cutest Mom” T-Shirt, I am also the coolest Mom in the fifth grade. I rule!!!

Another Monday morning, which means one week closer to retirement:-) And I have like half an hour before we get a response from someone and I will have to work like a maniac for the rest of the day, so I will take that time to chime in here.

I think I will talk about my job, which I promised to do but didn’t. I work for a firm that would be considered pretty small by most standards but is big in this industry. In the interest of not giving too much away, I will describe it as a sub-industry of “Investment Banking.” It isn’t really that, but that gives you enough of an idea.

I really have no business being here, and have no illusions about having this job for any reason other than being the boss’s (kind-of) daughter. Which, to be honest, I think helps me more than it hurts. In other cases, people might be jealous (I am, after all, the only employee who’s picture hangs on the wall in the boss’s office), but the nature of things here is that no one really is, and they genuinely appreciate having someone who can communicate with him in a different way than they rest of them.

How out of place am I? Well…generally, there is a clear career path on the Investment Staff. At the top are partners (of which there are five, and Papa Bear is the Managing Partner). Then there are Vice Presidents, then Principals and then Associates. At the bottom are Analysts. Within some of those, there are levels…Junior, regular and Senior. So, technically, it goes Junior Analyst, Analyst, Senior Analyst, Associate, Senior Associate, Principal, Vice President, Senior Vice President, Junior Partner, Partner.

The only thing is, the firm doesn’t hire analysts. It is not really a place where anyone will get “trained”, so rather than hire and train junior people, they normally just hire people who have a couple of years of I-Banking experience and an MBA and bring them in at the Senior Associate level.

Except me:-) I was the first Junior Analyst they ever had, meaning they kind of dusted off the position. I got promoted to Analyst right away because they mis-printed my business cards…Lol. True story, they left the “Junior” off, so they just announced to me, Congrats, you got promoted… No, I didn’t get a raise for that.

Beyond me, though, the next most junior people are the three Senior Associates. All of them have a couple years at the major banking houses, two have MBA’s from Harvard and one from Wharton. And they also all make like three times what I do…small detail.

Which puts me in a really unique spot, and I think helps in curbing what could naturally be some jealousy. Also, most of the staff are men, and they love that they can take me out and I pick up girls for them…so I have that going for me, too…hee hee!

Anyway, I really like my job. I love the people I work with and they are all very good to me. As you can guess, there is no really “training program” but people really go out of their way to explain things to me and teach me stuff. I know that if something comes up that I have never heard of, I can ask someone to explain it to and they will almost certainly take time over lunch to do it.

It is also an industry with no ceiling. The people are incredibly smart and work unbelievably hard, and for the people that are good at it, there is no limit to what you can do…and how much money you can make;-)

Within the industry, this is one of the more desirable places to work. It has been around longer than most, we raise some of the biggest funds and do some of the biggest deals. People go to great lengths to work here, which means that I am again incredibly lucky to have kind of landed here and had them create a spot for me. Everyone here qualifies as a super-achiever…except me:-P

So that is kind of it…like most things, I ended up here completely as an accident but it has worked out great. I make much better money than I deserve to but I genuinely enjoy coming to work every day. It’s hard to beat that. Even better…I work about a five minute walk from home and Munchkin’s school, which means I never have to drive and can get back and forth easily. One more reason I love living in the city!

Also, special note…Boss Foxy gets her own post later on…she is worth it;-)

Sunday, October 29, 2006

I forgot to thank “Bob” for leaving my first real comment. By real, I mean that it was not an ad for Viagara or an invitation to fuck someone. So thanks, Bob. I know people read, because my site meter tells me so, but comments rule!

Back to The Boy. When we left off, we had finally shed any other people and committed to a “relationship”. Which is no small deal for me…I don’t get a lot of free time, so if I agree to block out a big part of it for someone, he has to be pretty special.

And he is:-D He is really cute…sort of tall (everyone is tall compared to me), with black hair and green eyes. He is very lean and has some of the nicest shoulders, arms and back of anyone I know. He is older than me by four and a half years, which hasn’t really been a problem, although there are definitely some differences between his friends and mine. He lives pretty close to me…just on the other side of the Common and Public Garden, and has an excellent job with a small money management firm. He’s smart and funny and sweet and I always look forward to seeing him. Even when I am not getting laid!!!

He has a twin sister, which is WEIRD. She is awesome and I love her, and her wife, too (yeah, you read that right), but I definitely get weirded out by the twin thing sometimes. Example: they can order for each other in bars and restaurants. And not just like “Oh, he usually drinks vodka tonics,” but more like “Hmm…I think he feels like a vodka tonic,” even though he might rarely drink them. And they can sense each others’ moods and finish sentences and stuff.

Back to my story. Immediately after we were first “together”, I left for a month…oops! And he was rightfully confused, especially since I only talked to him twice while I was there.

Which meant that I had some work to do when I got home. I assured him that I was committed and didn’t want anyone else and I did want him, and he got to say some things that I know he needed to. I pretty much convinced him and things have moved along nicely since then. I am not foolish; I know that I can be a royal pain to date. I am naturally programmed to not be too attached to or reliant on people, and by definition there is always someone who comes ahead of a boyfriend.

So, among my many blessings is a wonderful boy who dotes on me in just the right amounts and puts up with all my foibles and lack of time. He could throw a tantrum over only seeing me two or three days a week, or about me changing plans at the last minute all the time because Munchkin is sick, or because I have to take her somewhere or get her or whatever. Or he could be angry about me not letting him stay over if Munchkin is around, or not staying at his place real often either.

But he does, and I thank him deeply for it. As I mentioned, we have periodic “talks” to make sure we are on the same page, and we are. He understands that I am not like most girls…I don’t need constant contact to know he loves me. And that if I don’t see him for a couple days, it doesn’t mean that I am not thinking about him. As for him, what he really wants is just to know what I am thinking. He can put up with my weirdness so long as he always knows where he stands.

OK, from now on, I am no longer allowed to blog after a couple drinks and a couple orgasms. What a blubbering fool I was last night…lol.

Not that I care to take any of it back, I meant all of it. It was just sappier than I would normally get.

Not a whole lot for you this morning…The Boy is showering and I have a little time before I run out to do a couple errands and then go get Munchkin. I really miss her…lol. A day and a half and she is about a quarter of a mile away, and I talked to her three times and I still miss her. What a dork!

There will be no Fantasy Football Fuckfest this week…The Boy has already begged off with a case of “fornication induced soreness” and I am feeling very much the same way. My stomach muscles hurt from all the orgasms…and my thighs are killing me from some catcher’s squat positioning… That’s right, I have sex injuries. And fuck me, do they ever feel good!

That is actually ok…we have a ton of shopping to do for the new place, and I have some work I should get done as well, so it is not like I have nothing else to do with the time.

This is kind of a weird time…its about 1 am and I am in my new bedroom blogging:-) Aren’t I dedicated? I started this post earlier, but never finished, so I will finish it now. The Boy is sleeping next to me, but I am not terribly tired…looks like I wore him out. We have had a lot of alone time the last two days, and I am pretty sure both his cock and my pussy are gonna be recovering for a couple days:-D [Yes, I totally laughed at myself for writing that].

It was a really weird day out today. It was warm, but really windy and really rainy. And we were moving all day, which kinda sucked. For the movers, that is…I don’t have much to complain about. I spent most of the week packing up my own stuff and munchkin’s stuff, throwing some things out, packing others for goodwill, etc. And I was a good little doobie, so I was in pretty good shape by yesterday.

I didn’t want munchkin around while we moved because she has been sick and I figured it would be better to let her rest all weekend. Since Papa Bear was complaining that he never gets to baby-sit anymore, I figured I could take care of two problems at once. So, after school yesterday, I took her over to Papa Bear’s place and dropped her off. The two of them have a really funny relationship…there is a little father/daughter, a little grandfather/granddaughter, and then there is a little of them just being buddies. He has a girlfriend that Munchkin totally picked up for him one day like a year ago. Whole other story.

Smoking Hot Roommate was out last night as well, which meant I had the whole place to myself to be alone with The Boy, a box of condoms and my overheated sex drive…hee hee. I am happy to say that I sent my old bedroom out in style. And the living room sofa. And the kitchen counter. And then the shower this morning.

In between all the fucking, we had a bit of a talk about “things”, which we do periodically just to confirm same page-ness. I have never been one to spend a lot of time talking about relationships, but I guess it is good to check in from time to time. I will sort of fill you in on that more later on, but I have to finish the stuff I started about him earlier for it to really make sense.

In the meantime, though, I am really excited about the new place. It is a complete palace, and it is WAY WAY WAY nicer than any place I ever thought I would live in. I guess it is times like this…alone and quiet…that I sort of assess life. I know it is sometimes more interesting to be disturbed and depressed (“dark and twisty”) but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I am extremely blessed and thankful beyond words for the things I have been given. And I couldn’t even begin to articulate how happy I feel about the things that Munchkin has…great school, great friends and loads of support from all kinds of people that have no obligation to do so (SHR, Big Sis and Papa Bear all get a special spot in heaven for the way they treat both of us, especially her).

Ok, I am crying, and that is really NOT my style. Well, fuck it, I am feeling emotional…that happens after orgasms sometimes. Especially the ones that come from the devoted tongue of an admiring boyfriend...hee hee.

There, that is more like me.

Alright, I am gonna stop typing before I get even sappier than I am already.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

I went to see The Killers on Thursday night (fucking rocked!), and had a bit of a funny interaction with the kids behind us. I went with Smoking Hot Roommate, who you all know, and our three friends Freckles, Redhead and Twinkle Toes. They are all…how do I say this…really fucking hot.

So, there were these four guys behind us who were kinda cute and pretty friendly. They were obviously kinda young, but whatever…they were funny and the fact that they were trying so hard was endearing. They were also really sort of clueless…one of them spent an enormous amount of effort trying to charm SHR, despite the fact that she was wearing an absolute monster of a rock on her left ring finger. They were clearly young enough that they hadn’t learned that yet.

Anyway, we were talking to them a bit before and during the show. After it ended, we decided to go kind of around the corner for a drink and, because we are kind and Twinkle Toes was kind of digging on one of them, we invited them. And it wasn’t really an imposition. I knew I was getting hit on, but whatever…they were funny and I don’t see the problem in letting them try, I gave the full Boyfriend disclosure that I think is socially necessary.

Which led to this:

Redhead: Hey, why don’t you guys come with us for a drink?Cute Boy #1: Nah, we can’t get in [i.e. we are too young]Freckles: Don’t worry about it, it is 18+ on Thursdays.Cute Boy #2: Yeah, we know.

So yes, I totally got hit on by a 17 year old. That is, he was, at most 17…I guess he could have been even younger than that. Yikes.

I seem to have gotten in some trouble. I have gone to great lengths to introduce ALMOST everyone that really matters to me. You met Munchkin (my real sister), Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis (my almost-real sisters), Papa Bear (not my father, but maybe my Dad), The Body and The Mouth, Boss Foxy, My Mother and My Father.

I kind of left out The Boyfriend. Sorry, buddy (don’t worry; I am WAY too cute for him to be mad at me…)

Ah, The Boyfriend, or BF, or The Boy [little hearts twinkling around my head]. Let’s see...I guess I will start at the beginning. I met him through Big Sis, who is kind of a tangential friend of his and thought that we might get along well together. This was actually last summer, just before Munchkin moved out here, and to be honest, I was kind of seeing a couple of guys.

Anyway, Big Sis told him to call me, so he did and we went out to dinner in the North End for our first date. There weren’t really immediate sparks, so to speak, but I definitely liked him. He is really cute and smart and he made me laugh a lot, which is sort of all I need (that’s it, huh?...lol). So, since I liked him, I held off on sleeping with him for a little while. Not that long, I have my limits after all…hee hee

I am, to be kind to myself…a royal pain in the ass to date, I think, despite being so obviously adorable and kind of hypersexual. And, this was the worst possible time to try and date me. Once little sis showed up, it became all about her and trying to get her adjusted and comfortable. Trying to do that and maintain the rest of my social life made it very difficult to advance any kind of a relationship.

For most of the fall and winter I probably only saw him once a week, tops. There were also a couple of other boys as well. Well, there was one other at least. Needless to say, his patience with me has been enormous and much more than I deserve.

And as a final test of that, I pulled the following stunt. In April, he finally told me that he was ok with the complications in my life, but he really wanted to know where he stood and where we were going. Which was totally, fair, given the time frame, and was also pretty good timing, because I had decided that I really liked him:-)

So, what the fuck, let’s do it. I am ready to be a full time, full attention girlfriend. He’s a great guy, treats me like gold and is always, always, always great to be around. Then I proceeded to leave the country for a month and only talk to him like twice.

Good thing I am cute…that shit could have caused a problem otherwise.

It was sort of a work emergency/great opportunity. There was a giant steel industry deal in Europe that was in trouble, and Papa Bear knew all the players involved and was hired to come in and try and hammer out the last minute details. So, last minute he had to go for an undetermined time, and needed some help. And since everyone else was either busy, or terrified that he would kill them sometime over the time there, the chance came to me.

It isn’t everyday that you get the chance to work with international CEO’s, bankers and various government big wigs (I met a Prime minister, a foreign minister and two finance ministers), so I went. Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis were beyond generous in taking care of Munchkin, and our aunt came out for a week as well.

BF though, was kind of understandably a little confused. After all, we had kind of been “dating” for nearly nine months, and I finally said “OK, no other boys, no other distractions, I wanna be your girlfriend.” Then one day left him a message that said “Hey, going to Europe today, be back in a couple weeks, I think.”

I will leave you with that little teaser and finish later…but I gotta run for the time being. And I like teasing you…hee hee!

Friday, October 27, 2006

Running late today...not enough sleep, maybe a little hungover and generally dragging. I have a ton to do this morning but if I get it done I will write more later. I have a couple of good stories from last night...

And a Day-Late Happy Birthday is in order as well for a tall kid with a minor drinking problem in Connecticut. Just because I forgot, however, does not mean that I will have sex with you to make up for it:-P

Thursday, October 26, 2006

My poor little munchkin is still sick:-( She’s better, and she did go to school, but she is skipping all of her afternoon stuff…mostly soccer. And she is home alone for the first time ever, which is a little bit scary.

Before you call me a bad mother, the two old ladies that live on the same floor as us are both home, and they know she is there. And Munchkin has my phone number and both of their numbers, so I feel pretty comfortable that she is safe. Please don’t call DSS.

I am going to see The Killers at the Orpheum tonight and I am fucking fired up and I will totally make out with Brandon Flowers if they let me. The Boy is not going, but he did coyly offer “Why don’t you sneak over here after the show for a bit.” I think we all know what that means…hee hee.

So a night out with my girls, The Killers and then I get laid? Best day ever?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Why won’t anybody leave me a comment:-( Seriously, nothing this cute should ever be ignored. Please notice me! Pay attention to me! Love me! I can see from my counter that people read…and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But I need more than your casual observance…I need your proactive love…

Back to my story from earlier, I am going to get a little bit socially active for a moment. Morning sex and social activism in one day…wow.

To start with, quick quiz...do you know who the three people listed in the title of this post are? More importantly, if you have a teenage daughter, does she know who they are? If not, then you are not being a good parent. Sounds harsh, but read on.

The field trip ran a bit long, so I was at school half an hour before the bus got back. I went into the cafeteria to get some coffee while I waited and there was a group of eight or nine girls with one of the teachers. The school runs from kindergarten through 12th grade (the high school kids pretty much get their own wing of the building) and these were all older girls. Some of them look older than me…hee hee.

Anyway, they were talking about the stock market, which I thought was kind of an odd topic, so I kinda dropped in and listened. They broke up and I asked the teacher what they were doing. She told me that she had started a group a couple years ago for girls approaching graduation.

Her goal is to expose them to career paths that they might not otherwise know. Which I think is super cool…for fuck’s sake, it is the 21st century, and we can tell girls that they are allowed to be things other than nurses and teachers. I told her what I do and she asked if I would come back and talk to the girls about it. I actually volunteered one of my bosses, who is one of the very few partner-level women in the industry I work in (in fact, she gets her own nickname: Boss Foxy). Hopefully she doesn’t get mad at me volunteering her:-D

This phenomenon is, honestly, something I have thought about before, but I was surprised to hear it in this environment. The kids that go to this school aren’t your average kids. The tuition is astronomical (my sister’s annual tuition is more than my college tuition was by almost double) and so the kids come from pretty well-healed homes. And yet, even being the children of the most successful people, the girls are STILL not encouraged to do the things that get people into that social stratosphere.

It is a societal embarrassment…a complete and utter fucking embarrassment…that 90% of engineering majors are guys and 90% of nursing majors are girls. TEACH YOUR GIRLS THAT THEY CAN LIKE MATH AND SCIENCE. Teach them that Paris Hilton is a fucking clown who hates herself, and that their heroes should be people like Meg Whitman or Boss Foxy.

I don’t mean the rudimentary “Oh, you can do whatever you want” talk. We all got that. I mean a lifelong reinforcing that there is a whole big world out there and that choosing which part of it to conquer is her fucking birthright. If she ends up as an elementary school teacher, then so be it. But if she does that because she never really knew what it meant to major in math, work for Goldman Sachs (funny, I orginally wrote "Lehman Brothers", and now two years later I am changing it...oh that pesky bankruptcy!!!), get and MBA from Yale and run a hedge fund, then you failed her.

In fact, if you have a daughter, IMMEDIATELY go out and buy a copy of Fortune Magazine’s most powerful women. It just came out and should still be around. And if it isn’t, email the magazine and ask for a copy. Or take ten minutes, sit down with your daughter and tell her “You can be one of these women, and I just wanted to tell you that I will help you if you want to.” It is a brief act, but it is a big one.

And don’t skip the “Highest Paid” list, either, since that is kind of the point, too.

Tell your daughters to aim high. Tell them to expect great things of themselves. Tell them to WANT great things of themselves. And never fucking apologize for standing up and saying “I want that, and I am gonna work my ass off to get it.”

It will make her happier, it will make you happier, it will decrease the chances of her getting into a shitty relationship, and it will make the world a better place.

I am at home this afternoon…Munchkin is one sick little girl:-( I do, however, get to spend the afternoon working on the sofa, wrapped up under a blanket with my laptop. I have the remote, the phone, coffee, a Diet Coke and a bag of Doritos all within reach…now THIS is what I call working.

I have a post based on a conversation I had with one of Munchkin’s teachers, but I don’t feel like writing it now. I will do that soon, though…promise.

Munchkin is on a school field trip which required them all to be on the bus by 7:00 am. So I walked her over to school, and then made my adorable little way over to The Boy’s apartment, let myself in and found a nice warm spot in his bed. That spot of course being directly on top of him.

I sort of told him last night I was gonna do that, which I assume is the reason he was still in bed. Normally he would be up at 6:30 and out the door by 7:15, so the change is schedule was probably in anticipation. And I gotta say, if you are gonna be late for work, having sex with me is about as good an excuse as I can think of:-D

The bad news is that Munchkin was getting better but now says she feels like shit again (my word, she doesn’t swear:-D) so once they get back from their field trip I am gonna have to go and get her and bring her home. So, I am still glowing, just not quite as much.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Please leave me comments! They make me feel loved. But, I do have a few rules:

1) No names. I know some of you know me, but I can’t publish any comments with names because I would like to retain some anonymity. In that same vein, I really want you to send this to all your friends because I want lots of readers!!! But if you could just leave my actual name out of it, that would be swell. And if you could REALLY leave Munchkin’s name out of it, that would be even sweller. Same goes for references to my exact residence, her school, my work, etc.

2) Nothing that doesn’t appear here. There are some things I have intentionally left out. If you know what they are, then you know what I am talking about and it is intentional. Don’t mention them or I won’t publish the comment.

3) Nothing too dirty. As you will find, I love talking about sex almost as much as I like having it, so I encourage you to do the same. But “Oh baby, you sound like such a fucking hot slut. I wanna eat your pussy, lick your asshole and cum all over your face” is really not something that I think adds any value.

4) No pictures. Don’t bother asking. I may post some eventually if I feel more comfortable, but not yet. And I won’t send you any either.

I never got the chance to tell you about The Mouth yesterday, so I will now. The Mouth is awesome…and that is all there is to it! And even though she called me dirty names for naming her The Mouth (if only that were the first time she ever called me names…), I still think that she is super cool.

The Mouth reminds me a Big Sis in a lot of ways. Starting with her being mega-smart like both Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis, and she also has the sort of inherent toughness that Big Sis has, too. Neither is shy about looking a big tough dude in the eye, telling him to fuck off and making him cower in fear. The Mouth also has the advantage of this great, super-sexy, gravelly voice that makes her seem like she is longshoreman-tough. Which she sort of is.

The Mouth lived on the same floor as me, The Body and Smoking Hot Roommate when were freshmen. How weird is that? Just totally randomly, the four of us were like right next to each other right from the start. The thing I always admired about Mouth was that she knew exactly what she wanted and what she needed to do to get it. She was a finance major from day 1 (how many 18 year old girl say “I want to be a Finance Major”? Not enough, if I get on my soap box for a second…seriously, give your little girls aspiration, you will be amazed at what they can do. Ok, done.) And from the beginning she was trying to make contacts at investment banks for internships and jobs down the road. I always wished I had that kind of focus, that there was something I knew I wanted that much.

Mouth actually lived at home sophomore year…she was from pretty nearby, and was saving money. So she lived in the dorm as a freshman, and then rejoined us in our apartment when we were juniors. She left us for a while during Junior year because she did a semester abroad in Spain, but other than that, she was with us for those two years and the summer before.

The best part about Mouth is that she absolutely terrifies boys. Guys will see her and think “Wow, check out the good looking broad with the great ass,” right up until they get a loud “What the fuck are you looking at?” Then they sort of cry a little and sit at the other end of the bar. Not that she can’t be very good to boys, who often seem to get a little too attached to her, in a kind of stalker way. We don’t need to go into that, though.

Anyway, Mouth lives in Los Angeles and she works for a hedge fund and lives with The Body. The hedge fund thing is a function of Papa Bear as well. He knew Mouth, and knew that she was hyper-smart and wanted to work in finance. He also has a lot of contacts in a lot of places, so during a conversation with a colleague who worked out there he mentioned that he knew a super capable girl that might work out well. She went out for an interview and was supposed to meet with like five people. She met the Managing Director first, who was supposed to talk with her for an hour, but hired her 20 minutes into the interview…true story. She can be pretty impressive when she puts her mind to it. [Note: she wants me to make sure that I add the fact that there are almost no women in the industry, so when she came to them personally approved by Papa Bear, she had the job before she even said a word and it was not a function of her brilliant interview. That is just her being self-depreciating, though…I like my 20 minute story better.]

Some basics…she is an only child, and the only one of my friends anywhere whose parents are still married (although Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis’s parents never separated, nor did Munchkin’s). And she and The Body are both currently single, and I am willing to put in a good word for any boys that are particularly nice to me…

I’m in kind of a pissy mood this morning. It’s cold outside and I didn’t get a real good night’s sleep, so I am kinda grumpy. Don’t worry, though, I am still wicked cute! THAT never changes.

I didn’t sleep well for two reasons. First, Munchkin slept in my bed last night, and she had a bit of a fever, so she was like sleeping next to a blast furnace. I would take the covers off and get cold, put them on and get hot, back and forth, and back and forth. Incidentally, this is also the reason why I don’t sleep naked anymore and part of the reason that I have a “No boys allowed” policy concerning overnight stays.

Munchkin tends to wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, get a drink of water or just kinda look around and make sure everything is ok (isn’t she cute:-)) and while she usually goes back to her own bed, maybe once or twice a week she comes to sleep with me or with Smoking Hot Roommate. Which is another one of life’s little pleasures for me. I am not a good bed sharer otherwise, but I like when she sleeps over. But, it means I had better be dressed, and there should probably not be any boys in the bed with me…hee hee. My door does have a lock, and I have certainly taken advantage of that lock for various nefarious activities, but I would rather not sleep with the door locked. Not that I would sleep naked all the time, at least not alone, but I have definitely fallen asleep after masturbating and not felt like putting clothes on. Now I just have to make sure I put some boxers on, at least. Ok, I may be sharing a little too much here…

The real reason I didn’t sleep well, and the reason I am in a pissy mood, is because my father called yesterday. Here is what I know about my father: he knocked up my mother, then left the picture right before I was born (close enough that she still thought he might come back, hence me having his name, but far enough that she couldn’t find him at the time, hence the misspelling). He never came back, nor did her bother to ever tell my mother where his family was, nor did he ever tell his family about me or my mother. I tried to find him a lot growing up; mostly because I think I wanted to smack him in the face for abandoning me with a raging drunk for my entire life.

Out of the blue, he found me when I was a junior in college. Actually he found my mother and even though she knew what a fuckhead he was, she also knew I had been looking for him so she gave me his number. I called him and then when I came home at Christmas I met him for the first time two days before Christmas (Happy Birthday Big Sis:-D). The meeting was kind of uneventful…I don’t know what I had been expecting, but I sort of expected to feel at least something. But I really didn’t, he was just some random guy that I happened to meet. I didn’t hate him, I didn’t love him; I just didn’t feel anything.

He had spent much of those 21 years in various jails in Illinois and Indiana on all kinds of crimes, usually involving drugs or stealing things to buy those drugs. The part that really pissed me off, though…when he was in Chicago, he lived less than five miles from me. And his entire family lived there, too. I had, of course, been looking for people with entirely the wrong name all those years, so I had never found them (I called everyone in the phone book with my name, and it is not an uncommon name at all. And Chicago is a big place.) So if my fucking mother knew how to spell, or if he had even one small shred of decency, I would have found them long before them. Also, I am going to write about them at length someday, too…his family is awesome, even if he is a fuck head.

I asked him if he had ever told his family about me and he said that he hadn’t. And I said I want to meet them and he said he wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. I pleasantly informed him that he could stick that idea straight up his ass, and that I was going to call them in three days, so he could either tell them on his own or I would tell them for him.

On Christmas Day I was sitting at home with Munchkin and Mom and some cousins and aunts (many of whom who I no longer speak to…more on that some other day, too) and the phone rang. “Hi, is AM there?” “Speaking” “Hi AM, my name is Sweet Aunt #1 and I think you are my niece.” And right then, on the spot, they invited me over for Christmas Day dinner. My favorite part? When she asked, I said that I had seen my father two days earlier and wasn’t ready to see him again, so they kicked him out…Lol. Anyway that is when I finally met most of the four aunts and uncles and 16 cousins that I had and never knew about despite the fact that they lived like five miles from. Thanks, Pops.

Anyway, I have seen him a couple times since then, and he calls me maybe once a month. He is back in jail, probably for good (something drug related and someone died, and though he didn’t kill anyone, his record is long enough that you don’t get out after things like that…fine with me). I saw him twice more before he went to back to prison…we met for dinner one day…and then I have been to see him in prison twice. I have no interest at all in seeing him, but Sweet Aunt #2 goes to see him regularly and she asked me to come a couple of times. Since she is super sweet, I go for her. He calls, and I guess he gets some credit for trying, but way too much time has passed for me to think that there is any place for him in my life.

So he calls and I usually talk to him, although only briefly and it usually irritates me. Normally he asks questions…how is work? Do you have a boyfriend? Where are you living? How is your sister? Have you talked to so and so? And I generally give brief answers…Work is good. Yes, I do have a boyfriend and no I am not bringing him to meet you. I still live in Boston but we are moving. Munchkin is good, and no I am not bringing her to me you either.

I am more pissy than usual because of something he said last night. I am not even sure if he meant anything by it or if he was just trying to be funny. He was making reference to his appeal attempts, which he says are weakened by not having a good attorney. They are also weakened by his 25 year history of breaking the law, but that is just a detail, I guess. So he made a throwaway comment like “Too bad I am not rich like your friends there. They always get the lawyers that get them out of shit like this.”

On the one hand, he could have just been making a joke. But he also could have been making a really snide remark about the snooty people I know (which, by the way, I hear all the time from my mother’s family…but fuck them) and an even more snide remark about how I am unwilling to help him get a better attorney to handle his appeal. Which he has mentioned in passing before, and to which I have told him that I have no interest in or intention of doing. Anyway, I could be reading too much into a harmless joke, but it put me in a bad mood either way and contributed to not sleeping well.

I could probably tell him to stop calling, but I don’t want to. He is in prison forever, I think he is ill (I don’t ask, but I have some suspicions) so I don’t even know how long “forever” is. If he wants to take in interest in his only daughter (big maybe there…) then so be it. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to speak when he calls, and I have no problem being the bigger person. So I sort of talk when he calls.

I don’t wish him ill will, I just don’t care that much. After all, we don’t even share a name.

Monday, October 23, 2006

I thought of names for my old roommates, and will introduce them to you now.

First: The Body. I thought about “Goddess” (thanks to an IM buddy in Connecticut…shout out!!!) but decided to go with Body because it fits better with her current roommate’s name. The Body was the first person I met at school. I had kind of snuck away from home and driven 1,000 miles and I was completely terrified. That, however, is a REALLY long story that I will save for a snowy day this winter.

Anyway, I didn’t know anything other than the general idea that everyone else was going to be different than I was. So what did I see when I got to school? Parents, that’s what. I saw all kinds of excited parents moving their kids into dorm rooms. Fucking great…I was an emotional wreck to begin with, and then I got immediately subjected to the reminder that I had a mother I wouldn’t speak to for another three months or see for almost a year and a father I had never seen and didn’t know the location of. If I had known his location, it would have been even more depressing…he was in prison at the time (and is again, but he did get out for a bit.) Regardless, I felt more along and scared than I think at any other time in my life.

Through the tears and the doubt, I checked in and got my room assignment. I walked up the stairs feeling WAY out of place and found my room. My roommate was already there looking like she just stepped off a page in the Victoria’s Secret catalog. The first thing I thought was “Wow, she is tall”…she was probably 5’8” then and is closer to 5’10” now. The second thing I thought was “Yikes, she’s hot.” As I mentioned, The Body is the single most attractive person I have ever seen. Beautiful dark eyes, gorgeous, shiny black hair, a perfect smile, perfect skin (who has perfect skin? at 18!!!) and curves in every place you would want a curve and nowhere you wouldn’t. I am not calling her The Body for nothing (incidentally, The Chest was a finalist as well…they are beyond spectacular…Lol.)

So when I timidly walked into my room, that is what I found…a perfect specimen of everything God can do well unpacking with her adorable little Japanese father. I got a big wide smile, and she stuck her hand and said “You must be Cutie, I’m The Body.” If I have to identify one single moment when my life hit bottom and began to get better, the drive there was bottom and that handshake was when it began to get better [and I am now referring to myself as “Cutie”…because I can!!!]

The Body has an interesting family story as well…AND she has a fucked up name just like me. How weird is that? Her father immigrated with his family when he was a teenager. When he was 15, he and Body’s mother met and she got pregnant. She was 17 or so. Body was born and for about a year and a half or so they all lived together, I think with her mother’s family (his parents moved back to Japan around then). Well, right before Body turned two, her mother left…just completely up and took off. Nice lady.

But Body’s father is the sweetest guy ever and he took real good care of her. He didn’t speak a ton of English but he managed. Worked nights, went to school and was basically just a totally selfless person. It also bears mentioning that he remained fairly close with Body’s mother’s parents. So even though the mother was out of the picture, the grandparents continued to shoulder as much of the burden as they could. Not surprisingly, Body and her father are incredibly close. I would say it sometimes borders on weird…lol…sorry chica:-). She tells him everything, and I mean EVERYTHING.

When Body was about 13 (?) her father met and married a new woman. He was only 29 at the time and she was 23, meaning that she really isn’t all that much older than Body is…lol. Anyway, they had a daughter almost right away and another one two years later. They wanted to try one last time to see if they could have a boy, so four years after that they had their boy…along with two more girls…triplets. So Body was the oldest of a 6 children and is a super great big sister to all of them. She and her baby brother are totally best buddies:-D

Now we skip ahead a bit…during our Senior year in college, Body’s Grandmother called her and said that she had been contacted by Body’s mother several months back and that after a bunch of conversations, she decided that she had to let Body decide whether or not she wanted to talk to her. And she did, and found out a couple of things. The reason her mother had run off? Oh…because she was pregnant again and got scared. So she took off, ended up in Texas, had the baby, met another guy and had another child a couple years later. So for all these years, Body had a brother and a half-brother in Texas, and her father had a son he never knew about. Now Body was the oldest of 8 children…

Skip ahead again to about five months ago. I was talking to Body and she said “Hey, guess what? My mom [step mom] is pregnant again”. Make that 9 children. And then about two months ago “Yeah, it’s twins”. Make that 10 children…

Oh… the name. When Body was born, her mother was sensitive about her having a really ethnic last name (yea, she is a bitch, we already knew that) so she “Americanized” Body’s last name. Imagine that his last name was Hirohito and she had the birth certificate read “Hero” and you will get the idea. So me and Body always had that weird thing in common…neither one of us has a last name that belongs to anyone else. All of her siblings have the real Japanese last name (well, except the two boys in Texas).

Shit, I have to leave to get Munchkin at school, so I am gonna have to leave The Mouth out until tomorrow. I promise to get to it first thing!

My first ever post from work, which seems like as good a time as any to talk about the job. First things first, though…I really, really, really love fantasy football…hee hee!!! I ended up taking a little longer than normal Sunday afternoon trip through orgasmville, which is totally fine by me. One other advantage…my more “sensitive regions” need a couple of days to recover from that sort of activity, which makes me feel not-as-bad about going a couple of days without getting laid.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten off to a bit of a dirty start to the week. I guess now you can all at least know where my mind is constantly:-D

I also totally forgot to mention that we are moving. Smoking Hot Roommate bought a new condo…much bigger than our current one (about 3,000 square feet versus 1,600). It’s kind of right around the corner, so the commute to work and to Munchkin’s school isn’t any longer. By the way, this is my favorite part of living in the city: walking. I have a car, but I rarely drive anywhere. Work and school are both within ¼ mile or so of home, and there are tons of restaurants and bars and stuff within walking distance. Even if they aren’t, you can get anywhere in a cab for like 12 bucks.

She closed on Friday, and she has some painters coming in this week to, well, paint. They should be done in a couple days and then we are moving next weekend. Moving is a complete pain in the ass, especially with kids involved. I don’t mind dragging it out and living out of boxes for a bit while I unpack, but that really isn’t a realistic option with the little one, which makes for a lot of packing and unpacking.

I got a lot of packing done last night and the night before, so I think I am in ok shape on that. It is also a good time to throw out stuff that I don’t need or bring things to Goodwill that don’t fit or that I don’t wear anymore. We have only been in this condo for a year and a half, so we don’t have a TON of junk, but stuff still accumulates fast.

I fully intended to tell you about my job this morning, but I got sidetracked and didn’t get to it. And now I have to get back to work, so I guess you will just have to wait until later. It’s not that exciting, either, it’s just work…certainly not nearly as exciting as fantasy football is.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Kind of a lazy Sunday morning. Munchkin seems to be feeling a little better, and me, too. I have two things for you this morning. The first is a random story from last week that I thought was cute, and the second is an ode to fantasy football…

First, Munchkin and her class have been instructed for their English and Social Studies classes to read the front page of The Boston Globe every morning, and then they discuss it at school. So, she dutifully reads the paper every day, asking us questions about things she doesn’t understand. The following conversation took place early last week:

Munchkin: I think you should vote for Kerry Healey for governorMe: How come?Mnuchkin: Because we should have a girl governor. That would be neat.Me: Well ok, but Deval Patrick is from the South Side [I think I know the project he grew up in and it is only little ways from where we lived in Chicago]Munchkin: (confused) Hmm. Darn. Well then, I don’t know who you should vote for.

Anyway, I thought it was cute.

Subject #2, why I love fantasy football. Now, I don’t have the slightest interest in football. I always liked the Bears just because everyone in Chicago does, but that was about it. I did date a guy in college for almost a year (and nearly married him…we will get to that someday) who plays in the NFL now. During that time I did pick up the basics of running, passing, first downs, touchdowns and field goals, etc. After we split (we didn’t really break up, to be honest…he turned pro and I wasn’t ready to leave school) I went back to my original status of not caring about football.

Smoking Hot Roommate, however, is a HUGE sports fan, as is Munchkin. SHR has a fantasy football team with some guy friends of hers, and this year she has brought Munchkin in as her co-manager. As a result, at about Noon every Sunday, they get pizza, make a bunch of snacks and park themselves in front of the TV to follow their team all afternoon. Which is my chance to sneak away and do errands for a while.

And by “errands”, I mean “a solid two hours of hot, sweaty sex.” I think I probably have a higher sex drive than average, and until last year, I was used to having basically complete freedom to get my rocks off however and whenever I saw fit. A freedom I took pretty good advantage of, by the way… In the interest of setting a good and appropriate example for the midget, however, I have had to cut back on those kinds of activities, and at 24, it is not always the easiest thing.

Not that I am really “complaining” per se…it is a small price to pay to have her around. I still get plenty, and The Boy knows how to push my buttons in all the right ways (ok, if he didn’t, I would probably just order him, too:-D). It would be completely inaccurate to imply that my sex life was significantly lacking. It is, however, different. Gone are the three, four and five (hee hee) hour, “I lost count” marathons that leave me exhausted, sore and tired in all the right way. The sex gets a little quicker and more urgent… supplemented by a greater appreciation of the time I actually have to do it.

Not on Sundays, though…thanks to my new favorite pastime, fantasy football…I get a good old-fashioned, all-afternoon banging. No urgency, no rush, just a whole afternoon with my adorable, naked and willing boyfriend:-D

[I wrote this last night but Blogger was being a bitch, so I am posting this morning]

Smoking Hot Roommate is out tonight running a charity event, and since munchkin is sick as a dog, I didn’t want to leave her with a sitter. Also, I am still sort of sick, too. Originally I was supposed to go out with The Boy last night and he was going to go to a bachelor party tonight. Since I had to cancel on him last night, he did the gentlemanly thing and offered to skip the party to take care of me. And being a considerate girlfriend, I declined and sent him on his way. I have to say, I really appreciate not having to always feel like conversations with him have subliminal meanings. When he says he doesn’t mind skipping the party, I know he means it, and when I tell him not to worry and go ahead, he knows I mean it. It is refreshing.

Anyway, add all of those things together, and you get me sitting here blogging on a Saturday night while munchkin drifts in and out of sleep watching the baseball game. She is a huge Cubs fan, which means she hates the Cardinals and isn’t real pleased with them winning.

Big Sis, meanwhile, has her own plans tonight…she was having dinner with her fiancé and his parents, and then going to a party with him and a bunch of his friends. Her fiancé is a neurologist, which means that I am going to give him the cute nickname “Brain Surgeon”. But Big Sis loves me and she loves Munchkin, so she called me during dinner and said “I am bring you guys dinner, what do you want?” She tends to be sort of direct…lol. And in between dining with in-laws at the best restaurant in the city and being escorted by her dashing doctor beau to her stimulating evening soirée, she took the time to have that fancy restaurant pack up dinner for us and then stopped over to drop it off and check in on us. THAT is why I love my (not quite) Big Sis.

Did anyone know that Clive Owen is in the Bourne Identity? I think him and Matt Damon should put on cod pieces and wrestle in oil for the right to do all kinds of dirty things to me…

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Along with Munchkin, Smoking Hot Roommate (SHR), (and her sister and father), is probably going to show up in just about every post I write. So she will get her own lengthy introduction post. Well, I guess the three of them will.

When I was a freshman, I lived in a dorm room with a girl who is now another of my very best friends. She also happens to be the single most attractive person I have ever seen in person…think Carmen Electra, only prettier and taller. I don’t have a cute nickname for her yet, but I will get one. I will also tell you about her someday because she is super cool and has a life story almost as random as mine (including a story about her name being weird like mine.) She lives in Los Angeles with another close friend and I miss her dearly…

Anyway, she immediately made friends with a girl who lived two rooms down from us…Smoking Hot Roommate. The only thing is: I didn’t actually like SHR…Hee hee. Don’t worry, I have told her this many times, so none of it is surprising. My rationale was that I thought she was a little snooty and a bit stuck up. In reality, I was just a tad bit jealous. I was a tiny, shy, poor kid in a strange place with all kinds of people around that were nothing like the people I grew up with, and here was this girl who was tall, and super confident in herself, and smart and funny and gorgeous and everyone wanted to be around her all the time. It was also apparent that she grew up in a somewhat different social stratosphere than I did (she had earrings worth more than the various houses I grew up in.)

So I didn’t like her. But then her boyfriend (now fiancé, sorry fellas) came to visit one weekend and I changed my mind.

I’m entitled, I’m a girl:-D.

What happened? Well, I sort if expected some guy named Chip with chiseled features, a complete wardrobe by Polo and stories of chartering his yacht around the Hamptons all summer. Turns out he is a complete dork. (Sorry buddy:-)) He is a dork in a super cute way, though…he is a dork like Seth on The OC or Jim from The Office. But…I spent an afternoon with him (the two hot chicks had something else they had to do) and realized that he is super nice, super sweet, really funny and uber-smart. I already knew the last part, he went to MIT.

They met in a wicked cute way, too. His mom used to clean SHR’s house, and SHR’s mom told her that instead of paying a babysitter, she should just bring her son along and he could play with SHR. Basically, they met in a sandbox when they were 3 and have been best friends since. How cute is that? So, my giant epiphany was that this girl who is so perfect and could have any boy she wanted picked one who really IS perfect for her, even if he may not look like it at first glance. I figured maybe I wasn’t giving her a fair shake, so I sort of re-assessed her. And good thing I did.

After that, me and SHR became really close really fast. We happen to be extremely similar, even if we have virtually no common background. I don’t think I have ever been even remotely angry with her about anything. We even had a trip home from the Bahamas once that took like 27 hours and had a bunch of delays and cancellations, but it was never that bad because we can just hang around together like that and it is always a good time. When we were sophomores, SHR and I lived in a triple with my freshman roommate (she needs a cute name…I will confer a bit and get one for her). Then when we were juniors and seniors we lived in an apartment together, some of the time with a fourth girl (who now lives in LA with freshman roommate).

After junior year, I came to Boston to live with SHR and her father for the summer, and to be an intern at her father’s company. One of the things that will become apparent as I write more, SHR’s dad is the closest thing I have ever had to a father. Not only has been extremely good and kind to me, but he has done the same for my sister (right down to having a room at their beach house made into a “Princess Room” for her when she moved here last summer to make her feel more welcome). When I get married someday, I will probably ask him to give me away. And in tribute, he gets the following catchy and cute nickname: Papa Bear. I just giggled to myself.

At the end of the summer, Papa Bear told me that if I took a couple of finance classes (I was a poli-sci major) that I could work there when I graduated. Since I really liked what we do and the people that work there, I decided that that was in fact a good idea, so I did it. The fact that he was willing to pay me WAAAAY more than I am worth was probably a factor in that decision as well. More on the job some other time…

But that is how I ended up in Boston. I decided to move here, work for Papa Bear and live with SHR after graduation. True to SHR being one of the nicest and most generous people around, when I found out my mother was dying and decided that I was going to take in Munchkin, she quickly jumped on board with the idea, and encouraged me to bring her to Boston (as opposed to staying in Chicago with her), despite the fact that it would obviously be a pretty large imposition on her. She is just really nice that way.

Smoking Hot Roommate has an older sister who is also one of my best friends, and who I totally aspire to be like. I am going to just go ahead and call her Big Sis. She is really similar to SHR only she swears a lot more…Lol. There is also a little of the mother-daughter relationship that Munchkin and I have, although not quite as dramatic. Both girls are super close to their father, but their mother died when SHR was 12 and Big Sis was 19. And like both SHR and Papa Bear, Big Sis has been extraordinarily generous to both me and Munchkin.

This post is too long for a blog…Lol…so I will wrap up with a story; the only time Papa Bear ever yelled at me. My biggest concern in bringing Munchkin to Boston was that I would be alone with all that responsibility (or so I thought, I was wrong). As WT as my (and Munchkin’s) families I Chicago are, at least they are there. If I stayed, there are a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins to share the burden of taking care of her. And the biggest thing I needed to look into was finding her a school. This is no small task…SHR had bought a condo in Boston, but the Boston Public School suck. So I would either need to live somewhere else and send her to public schools (probably in Brookline, which is a town near Boston and really close to downtown) or pay to send her to a private school in the city or near it. Neither of which was terribly appealing, or even feasible.

Papa Bear proposed a solution: there is a fantastic school about two blocks from SHR’s new condo. It is very small, extremely good and (this is big with kids) the combination of classes, sports, music, art and other extracurricular stuff keeps the kids at school from 8 am until 5 pm every day (it is not as bad as it sounds…lol…the “classes” run until like 12:30, and then after lunch is all the other stuff). I sort of knew that the place was absurdly expensive, but I went to see it because Papa Bear asked me to.

And it was everything that you could hope for. Top notch facilities, small class sizes, great teachers, etc. And they told me that, given her grades and her unique background, that they would make a spot for her in the fall. So I went back to Papa Bear and said “Great place, but I can’t afford it”. And he said that he wanted to pay for it, and I politely declined.

As I sort of implied, SHR’s family is extremely wealthy, and paying for Munchkin’s school wouldn’t be any kind of an imposition on him. But I didn’t really want to be a complete leech (I sort of got over that problem:-D) and kind of wanted to do this by myself. So I said no, and two days later he called me into his office and asked if I had thought about it any more and I said that I still appreciated the offer but couldn’t let him do that.

And then he yelled at me...hee hee. Now, I have heard him yell at people all the time, but never me. In fact, there are times at the office when everyone else will speak to him only through me because they are worried that he will bite their heads off, and they know that he won’t snap at me. But this one time he did; he told me that it was fine to be proud, but you had to know when to accept help, especially when it was on someone else’s behalf. So after a quick, stern talking-to, I knew he was right and I caved.

The school has been phenomenal. She loves it there, she does really well, her teachers all love her, and I really love the environment. The parents are all involved and stay in contact with each other, and they have been incredibly welcoming to both me and her. Really it has all been pretty perfect.

So the Smoking Hot Roommate story is about more than just her. It’s about her being my other half, and about her father being a friend and a Dad, and about her sister being the long lost older sister I never had. Big Sis sometimes introduces me and Munchkin as her sisters, which makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy inside:-).

Like I said, she will be in virtually every post, so I figured I should give her a proper introduction.

Until about a year ago, the chances of me being awake and writing at 9:00 am on a Saturday would have been pretty slim. Like most people my age, I would have been sleeping soundly in preparation for the nursing of a hangover. I also probably wouldn’t have been alone, which gets to one of the few downsides of accidental motherhood…there is less sex.

I guess there doesn’t have to be, but that is sort of a choice I have made. I am not ever going to win any awards for my adherence to Christian morals, not do I aspire to, but I am aware that there are impressionable youth around, and there are things that I feel like are not appropriate for her to see. Which means no boys staying over when Munchkin is around (this is probably temporary, for later today I will probably introduce you to The Boy, who is probably pretty close to reaching the stage where I feel like it is ok for her to see him staying over. I am getting way off topic.)

Back to the theme of this post: “simple pleasures”. I have never been an early riser. Smoking Hot Roomate is…she sleeps about four hours a day and gets up before 6:00 most days and runs like 7 miles. If I haven’t mentioned, she can be weird…hee hee. For me, however, anything before Noon on a weekend would have been considered getting up early until pretty recently.

But…I absolutely LOVE getting up for soccer game Saturdays in the fall. Munchkin plays soccer, and all the games are on Saturday mornings. So we have a fall Saturday routine. She wakes up before me usually, and will either hang out with Smoking Hot Roomate for a bit or she will come and wake me up. Then we get dressed, walk to Dunkin Donuts for coffee (me) and orange juice (her) and then walk over to her game. During the games I usually just sit and kind of veg, or I chat with the other parents about parent stuff. Then after the game we go back to Dunkin Donuts to get bagels (plain and plain for Munchkin, onion and veggie for me, plain and smoked salmon for SHR) more coffee and hot chocolate. It is a very simple and pleasant time of the week. It’s peaceful, and I look forward to it intensely.

This morning, however, I am missing my favorite time of the week:-( Munchkin has been sick for a few days and can’t play in her game. She is actually still asleep.

Digression time…The Killers fucking rock. When You Were Young is on the video countdown and I think that song is the shit. “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young.” I think that speaks on a very intense level to the way young women are treated in too many places and the (lack of) aspiration that we instill in them. The fact that the song is on an album called Sam’s Town is just plain fucking weird on a personal level, but that is a REALLY long story that I may or may not tell. Maybe if you ask nicely (it is somewhat related to sort-of running away at 18…)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

So munchkin is sleeping still, and will probably be laid up all weekend. Normally, this extra sleep of hers would give me the chance to sneak off and partake in another one of my favorite pastimes…slipping into The Boy’s bed and getting my hump on…but he stayed at his sister’s place last night (twin sister…twins are weird!!!) which is too far away to get to and back quickly. It might also be a little strange to show up “Hey, if you don’t mind, I am gonna have sex with you brother real quick and then take off.” Not that I am at all above that…Hee hee:-) Actually, I count his sister (and her wife…this is Massachusetts after all…) as very close friends and wouldn’t hesitate to do that at all, but anyway.

There is also a totally different reason why I am not going over there, which falls into a similar category of favorite pastimes, but I am not really ready to get into that just yet. No, it is not blogging.

Anyway, I have gotten totally off topic here. I intended to write about simple pleasures…like waking up on a cold winter night, looking at the alarm and seeing that it is like 3:25 and you can roll over and go back to sleep. For me, Saturday morning soccer games are just about the height of life, and I am bummed out that I am missing it this morning. Ahh well, maybe she wants to go and get Chicken Fingers and watch baseball tonight…that's another one…

Friday, October 20, 2006

I think I have a pretty interesting story. A number of people have told me that I should write about it, and since I have a couple of favorite blogs, I figured that this was a pretty good medium to use. I like writing, and I like telling stories, and I hope you like them too. As for why I decided to start now, I don’t really know. I have been sick all week, and crashed when I got home from work. Now it is 11:30, the munchkin is sleeping soundly (more on that in a second), I just woke up and I am wired. Result: blog.

I am also a dork and I want proper spelling, so I am writing these posts in Word and then pasting them into Blogger. I guess that is probably pretty bad form in the blog world, but fuck it. I like to be grammatically correct. Sue me. (Don’t sue me. I have been sued, it is not pleasant. I will tell that story some day).

I guess I will start with the basics. I am 24 and I live in Boston. I was born and raised in Chicago, and left to go to school in Arizona. One of my very best friends there is from Boston and after we graduated I moved back here with her. At that same time, my mother died, leaving my kid sister (she was 10 then, 11 now) an orphan. I couldn’t rightly leave her with our white trash family, so I picked her up and moved her to Boston with me.

If I back up for a second, I just had an epiphany. What is life if not a series of people and relationships? And I think that is a pretty good way to tell you my story…through some discussion of the people that have mattered to me. Good and bad. Since I am going to keep this sort of anonymous (seriously…you know any other people that adopted their little sisters? If you know me, you can connect the dots pretty fast, but I am not gonna go out of my way to help) I am going to give everyone cute nicknames. If you leave any comments and use any real names, I am not going to post them, so keep that in mind.

First up on the list of people that matter to me:

1) The Munchkin (aka, The Midget, The Little One, Pipsqueak, Half Pint, Cutest Girl Ever, or just CGE) – Adorable and perfect. My mother was useless, but she sure got this one right. Munchkin is smart, funny, polite, mature, gets straight A’s, never gives me any trouble, and is basically all around perfect. I am not really even exaggerating. She is in fifth grade now and plays soccer, basketball, flute and baseball. NOT softball…real baseball, and don’t let her hear otherwise. You are going to hear a LOT about Munchkin as time goes along.

2) Mom – I will probably write about her sporadically, but when I do, I will have lots to say. We had a tough relationship, mostly because she was a raging drunk during my formative years. But the heat always worked, there was always food and clothes and she never hit me or anything. A lot of kids have it a lot worse.

3) Father – Deadbeat. Met him when I was 22. Some trivia: my last name doesn’t belong to anyone. My mother gave me his last name, but since they weren’t really…um…”close”, she didn’t know how to spell it right. So my name is spelled totally differently than his (imagine his last name was Phoenix and she spelled it Feenicks on the birth certificate and you get the idea.) He is in prison now and he isn’t getting out.

4) Smoking Hot Roommate – I had trouble coming up with a moniker for her. Even that one isn’t great…she is more than that. She is definitely smoking hot...5’ 7”, blond, legs that go on forever…jealous!!! She also happens to be smarter than you and me combined. And people love her. So basically she is perfect. And she does happen to be my roommate (technically she is my landlord and practically she is a very generous provider of discounted housing…). I am getting kind of tired now, so I am going to put this off until tomorrow. But since Munchkin is sick, too, I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of time tomorrow to write some more. And I promise to give you more on Smoking Hot Roommate.

About Me

I'm 30, and without tooting my own horn, I am wicked cute:-)
I live in a fantastic condo in Boston with my adorable husband (since September of 2009), our twin girls (April, 2010) and my sort-of adopted 17 year old little sister. I am a recent graduate of a fancy-shmancy business school, and I benefit from a lot of fantastic people that treat me like family and give me a lot to be thankful for.
I also have an 12 year old half-sister in Chicago that I wish I saw more!
Stick around and I will tell you some stories:-D Most of them are pretty good, I promise!!!